Chapter 21
The Woman Behind Her
The woman behind Claire breathed once.
Claire did not turn.
In the dark, the body made choices before the mind could approve them. Her feet held still. Her right hand found the edge of the chair. Her left hand closed around the brass key.
“Who are you?” Claire asked.
“You know.”
“That answer is no longer acceptable.”
The room remained silent except for the tape machine. Mara's voice had stopped. Daniel was testing the door. Tess was calling his name through the darkness.
The woman behind Claire moved closer.
“You asked me to stay where you could not see me.”
Claire remembered the lake. Mara's hand on her shoulder. A room without windows. Her own voice saying, Make sure I do not wake alone.
“I did not ask you to become me.”
“You asked me to survive you.”
Claire turned.
The flashlight on the floor flickered.
The woman stood less than a foot away. She wore a gray coat now, not Lena's. Her face was Claire's face at twenty-eight, but her eyes were exhausted.
“You are Rowan,” Claire said.
“That is one of my names.”
“What is the other?”
“The one they use when they need me to answer for you.”
Claire stepped back. “How many of you are there?”
Rowan looked at the chair.
“Enough to make a town.”
The door opened.
Daniel stood in the threshold with the flashlight raised. Tess was behind him. Rowan disappeared through the second door before anyone could stop her.
Daniel entered. “Where did she go?”
Claire pointed at the wall. “There is another exit.”
They found it behind the tape machine. The passage led to a flooded maintenance shaft. Rowan had left a trail of wet footprints, but they ended at a brick wall.
“She could not have vanished,” Daniel said.
Claire touched the bricks. One shifted.
Behind it was a small compartment containing a notebook and a child's drawing. Two figures stood beside a lake. One had Claire's face. The other was a girl with no face at all.
On the bottom of the drawing, in blue crayon, someone had written: WE TAKE TURNS.